For several short but consequential years across the early 1970s, Tony Iommi found himself as one of rock’s most influential guitarists, whether he quite realised it or not.
They couldn’t have known just how enduring their legacy would be. Founded in Birmingham in the late 1960s, downtuned guitars, their hometown’s deindustrialised fug, and a lyrical penchant for the occult all brewed a dark storm of an engulfing blues shroud that reported on the death of the hippy idyll with just as much dramatic attack as anything from the Detroit garage explosion.
Along with Led Zeppelin and Deep Purple, Black Sabbath would pave the way for the new wave of British heavy metal set to explode by the end of the decade, unleashing a string of LPs that amount to some of the most lauded of the rock canon. Things began to creak six albums in, 1975’s Sabotage still possessing dark gems amid an ebb in the former magic. The original line-up would soldier on with founding frontman Ozzy Osbourne, the following year’s Technical Ecstasy and 1978’s Never Say Die! patchy efforts that were spelling a band spinning out of control.
The classic lineup’s low points were miles above what followed, however. While Osbourne had jumped to an enormously successful solo career, Black Sabbath would enjoy commercial fortunes through a steady rotation of singers and personnel shuffles, including Rainbow’s Ronnie James Dio and Deep Purple’s Ian Gillan, but even the most committed fans knew the glory days were long gone, Iommi eventually holding the fort as the sole remaining original member by the end of the 1980s.
Black Sabbath’s nadir was hit hard in 1995. Despite the return of the Tyr era’s Neil Murray and Cozy Powell on respective bass and drums, faith in the creative direction was faltering. To shake things up, the IRS label thought to reach into Los Angeles’ flashpoint of metal and hip-hop to pluck out rapper Ice-T’s Body Count guitarist Ernie C to shape the sound of the upcoming Forbidden sessions. Not long after the notorious ‘Cop Killer’ single had landed in the alternative rock world, it seemed like just the fresh voice needed to breathe new life into an exhausted and wayward band.
“Forbidden has been a thorn in my side for years,” Iommi confessed to Classic Rock. “I knew all about Ice-T and that he was good, but I didn’t expect him to bring along his guitar player to produce the album”.
To much bewilderment, Ernie C’s studio presence brought an interruption to whatever creative flow was sorely chased by Iommi. “When a band knows its sound and exactly what it wants, bringing in an outsider is very disruptive,” Iommi revealed. “I found myself on the sidelines. Our whole situation had become so frail”.
Nothing appeared to work; the bright idea of roping in Ice-T for the album opener ‘The Illusion of Power’s spoken word passage only added to Forbidden’s overwhelming clunkiness. Sabbath wouldn’t enter the studio again til 2013, when Iommi, Osbourne, and bassist Geezer Butler joined forces with Rick Rubin to record 13, the first real album from the metal pioneers since Never Say Die! to garner any genuine excitement.
Wrongs would be righted in 2024, Iommi resurrecting session guitar parts and overseeing a new remix for the Anno Domini 1989–1995 box set to present fans his director’s cut of the maligned Forbidden project.
